Stat tracking and Brad leaving
Livejournal usage continues to slowly decline. insomnia's post here from last december continues to attract new comments and the statistics continue to be updated. In addition, pyrop has posted a graphical representation of these stats on their own journal. Here's a key graphic:
The rest of the post and graphics are very much worth looking at as well.
In addition, brad himself has announced he is leaving Six Apart; some speculate that part of this decision is related to him seeing the writing on the wall. Not knowing more than is written online it is of course impossible to judge, but the loss of the site founder, combined with the continued decline in usage, especially after the introduction of advertising, does not look good for the future of the site itself.
ETA: From the comments to his post, brad says: please, don't discuss this with me. The flood of personal emails to me about this is a big part of the reason I realized that after 9 years, I need to find something else to do.
ETA2: A lot of the comments have become about the current "fandom Vs 6A" arguments. I remain of the opinion that a huge amount of fan published stuff is of dubious legality, agree with liz_marcs when she says the artists in question were idiots but that the real problem is 6A customer service. My reading (as a British subject with a background in constitutional theory) is that the law in the US is not clear and quite simply LJ doesn't want to be the company that gets sued; it can't afford either the costs nor the negative publicity. Ergo their legal advice urges caution; fandom lawyers, naturally, argue for a more liberal approach. The big issue is two fold:one-6A hasn't clarified its policies. Two-the law is a problem that needs clarification.
This issue may indeed, as insomnia argues in the comments, the tipping point that sounds the death knell for the site-it may be that 6A can rebuild a business model afterwards, it may be that fandom doesn't walk, and it'll all blow over.
What I do know is that if the site is dying, and I believe it is, then I regret that deeply-I got engaged today, I met my new fiancé through this place.
The rest of the post and graphics are very much worth looking at as well.
In addition, brad himself has announced he is leaving Six Apart; some speculate that part of this decision is related to him seeing the writing on the wall. Not knowing more than is written online it is of course impossible to judge, but the loss of the site founder, combined with the continued decline in usage, especially after the introduction of advertising, does not look good for the future of the site itself.
ETA: From the comments to his post, brad says: please, don't discuss this with me. The flood of personal emails to me about this is a big part of the reason I realized that after 9 years, I need to find something else to do.
ETA2: A lot of the comments have become about the current "fandom Vs 6A" arguments. I remain of the opinion that a huge amount of fan published stuff is of dubious legality, agree with liz_marcs when she says the artists in question were idiots but that the real problem is 6A customer service. My reading (as a British subject with a background in constitutional theory) is that the law in the US is not clear and quite simply LJ doesn't want to be the company that gets sued; it can't afford either the costs nor the negative publicity. Ergo their legal advice urges caution; fandom lawyers, naturally, argue for a more liberal approach. The big issue is two fold:one-6A hasn't clarified its policies. Two-the law is a problem that needs clarification.
This issue may indeed, as insomnia argues in the comments, the tipping point that sounds the death knell for the site-it may be that 6A can rebuild a business model afterwards, it may be that fandom doesn't walk, and it'll all blow over.
What I do know is that if the site is dying, and I believe it is, then I regret that deeply-I got engaged today, I met my new fiancé through this place.